Avril Lavigne
1984 SEP 27 Avril Ramona Lavigne was born to a French-born father, Jean-Claude, and a Franco-Ontarian mother, Judy, in Belleville, Ontario, Canada 1985-1997 At the age of two, Lavigne began singing church songs along with her mother. The family moved to Napanee, Ontario, when Lavigne was five years old. During her teenage years Lavigne was an active campaigner for Skaters Rights, a left-wing group campaigning to establish basic human rights for skateboarders. The campaign remained largely unsuccessful 1998 Lavigne won a competition to sing with fellow Canadian singer Shania Twain on her first major concert tour. She appeared alongside Twain at her concert in Ottawa, appearing on stage to sing "What Made You Say That". She was discovered by her first professional manager, Cliff Fabri, while singing country covers at a Chapters bookstore in Kingston, Ontario. 1999 During a performance with the Lennox Community Theatre, Lavigne was spotted by local folk singer Steve Medd, who invited her to contribute vocals on his song, "Touch the Sky", for his album, Quinte Spirit. 2000 She also sang on "Temple of Life" and "Two Rivers" for his follow up album, My Window to You. NOV Lavigne was signed by Ken Krongard, an A&R representative to Arista Records, who invited the head of Arista, Antonio "L.A." Reid, to hear her sing at the Manhattan studio of producer Peter Zizzo 2001 In studio recording debut album 2002 MAY 14 Debut single, "Complicated", is released and peaks in the top 5 in many countires JUN 4 Lavigne released her debut album, Let Go, in the United States, where it reached number two. It peaked at number one in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. This made Lavigne, at seventeen, the youngest female soloist to have a number-one album in the United Kingdom until that time OCT 28 Second single, "Sk8er Boi", is released and again becomes a big hit around the world NOV 19 Third single, "I'm With You" is released peaking in the top 10 in many countries By the end of the year, the album was certified four-time platinum by the RIAA, making her the best-selling female artist of 2002 and Let Go ''as the top-selling debut of the year Lavigne appeared in the video to "Hundred Million" by the pop-punk band Treble Charger Lavigne was named Best New Artist at the MTV Video Music Awards 2003 '''APR' 1 "Losing Grip", the fourth and final single from the album, Let Go, is released being only a minor hit MAY Let Go had accumulated over 1,000,000 sales in Canada, receiving a diamond certification from the Canadian Recording Industry Association. 1 Angus Drive EP ''is released 27 ''Try To Shut Me Up EP ''is released Won four Juno Awards out of six nominations, received a World Music Award for "World's Best-Selling Canadian Singer", and was nominated for eight Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year for "Complicated" and Best New Artist Covered Green Day's "Basket Case", which she performed at her first headlining tour the "Try To Shut Me Up Tour" '''AUG' Recording of second album begins 2004 JAN Recording of second album finishes FEB Avril began dating Deryck Whibley Lavigne co-wrote "Breakaway" with Matthew Gerard, and was recorded by Kelly Clarkson for the soundtrack to the film The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. "Breakaway" was later included on Clarkson's second album, Breakaway, and released as the album's lead single. Lavigne has also covered The Goo Goo Dolls' mega-hit "Iris", produced by Eric Book, and performed with the band's lead singer John Rzeznik at the Fashion Rocks concert. She also recorded the theme song for The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. APR 27 "Don't Tell Me", the first single off the upcoming album (Under My Skin) is released. Peaked at US #22 and peaked in the top 10 in no less than 10 countires MAY 25 Lavigne's second studio album, Under My Skin, was released, debuting at number one in several countries, including Australia, Mexico, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States Lavigne went on a "Live and by Surprise" twenty-one city mall-tour in the U.S. and Canada to promote the album, each performance consisted of a short live acoustic set of songs from the new album. She was accompanied by her guitarist, Evan Taubenfeld JULY 1 Live Acoustic EP ''is released 7 The single "My Happy Ending" is released. UK #5, US #9 and top 10 in several other countires By the end of the year and during a whole year Lavigne embarked into her first world tour the "Bonez Tour" which visited almost every continent around the world. "Don't Tell Me" the first single of the album went to number one in Argentina and Mexico, the top five in the UK and Canada, and the top ten in Australia and Brazil. "My Happy Ending" the album's lead single went to number one in Mexico, top five in the UK and Australia, In the United States it reached the top ten of Billboard Hot 100 and went to #1 in the U.S. Mainstream Top 40, making it her forth-biggest hit there. Third single "Nobody's Home" did not make the top forty in the U.S., and it only went to number one in Mexico and Argentina. The fourth single from the album, "He Wasn't", reached top forty positions in the UK and Australia, and was not released in the U.S. "Fall to Pieces" was released as the final single from the album, but did not do as well as previous singles. '''NOV' 15 The single Nobody's Home is released. It becomes one of her least successful singles, peaking in the top 10 in only a handful of counttries Lavigne won two World Music Awards for "World's Best Pop/Rock Artist" and "World's Best-Selling Canadian Artist" In late 2004, she had a small pink heart-shaped tattoo featuring the letter 'D' applied to her right wrist, which represents her now ex-husband Deryck Whibley a fellow Canadian singer who is the lead singer/guitarist of punk band Sum 41 2005 She received five Juno Award nominations, picking up three, including "Fan Choice Award", "Pop Album of the Year" and "Artist of the Year". She won the award for "Favorite Female Singer" at the eighteenth Annual Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards, and got nominated in every single MTV Award show around the world JUNE 27 Lavigne and Whibley become engaged 2006 Lavigne represented Canada at the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, performing her song "Who Knows" during the eight minutes of the Vancouver 2010 portion JUNE to NOV Recording sessions for Avril's third album JULY 15 The couple married in a Catholic ceremony attended by about 110 guests at a private estate in Montecito, California AUG Canadian Business magazine ranked her the seventh top Canadian actor dominating in Hollywood in their second-annual ranking Celebrity Power List. She is ranked second with the most web hits, and sixth in TV mentions While Lavigne was in the studio for her third studio album, Fox Entertainment Group approached her to write a song ("Keep Holding On") for the soundtrack to the fantasy-adventure film Eragon NOV 20 "Keep Holding On" debuted on radio 28 "Keep Holding On" released for digital download Lavigne made her film debut in the animated film Over the Hedge. She voices the character Heather, a Virginia Opossum 2007 APR 17 Lavigne's third album, The Best Damn Thing, is released and debuts at US #1 Lavigne undertook a small tour to promote the album. Its lead single, "Girlfriend" was Lavigne's first single to have reached number one in Billboard. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry ranked "Girlfriend" as 2007's most-downloaded track worldwide, selling 7.3 million copies in eight different languages MAY 25 Songwriters James Gangwer and Tommy Dunbar sued Lavigne, her co-songwriter Lukasz Gottwald, Almo Music, and RCA Records, claiming that "Girlfriend" contains lyrics plagiarized from their song "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" JUNE 12 Compilation album Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur ''is released. Lavigne recorded a cover of the John Lennon song "Imagine" as her contribution to the album. '''NOV' 28 Lavigne took part of the Unite Against Aids concert presented by ALDO in support of Unicef at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec Canada DEC Lavigne, with annual earnings of $12 million, was ranked number eight in the Forbes "Top 20 Earners Under 25". 2008 JAN Following a confidential settlement, Dunbar and Gangwer said in a statement that they "are satisfied that any similarities between the two songs resulted from Avril and Luke's use of certain common and widely used lyrics". They completely exonerated Lavigne and Luke "from any wrongdoing of any kind in connection with the claims made by us in our lawsuit "Girlfriend" rank at #27 of the Top 50 - Digital songs of All time "Girlfriend" is the most watched video in Youtube over a year and was the first video ever in crossing more than 100,000,000 views on the site During this era Lavigne won mostly every single award she was up to including two World Music Awards for "World's Best-Selling Canadian Artist" and "World's Best Pop/Rock Female Artist" , she took her first two MTV Europe Music Awards, received one Teen Choice Awards for "Summer Single" and got nominated for five Juno Awards. MAR Lavigne undertook a world tour named "The Best Damn Tour" to support the album APR 15 Control Room - Live EP ''is released Lavigne launched the clothing line Abbey Dawn, featuring back-to-school collection '''AUG' Malaysia's Islamic opposition party, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, attempted to ban Lavigne's show in Kuala Lumpur, judging her stage moves "too sexy" Her concert slated 29th was deemed promoting wrong values ahead of Malaysia's independence day on August 31 21 MTV reported that the concert had been approved by the Malaysian government 2009 Lavigne is currently working on her fourth studio album, which is due out in early 2010. Eight songs, four of which Lavigne had written as a teenager, had been recorded as of August 1 MAR 7 Lavigne announces the release of her first fragrance, Black Star via Lavigne's official website. Black Star will be released in summer 2009 in Europe, and later in America and Canada MAY 12 iTunes Essentials: Avril Lavigne EP is released SEP 17 It is announced that Lavigne and Whibley split up and that divorce papers will soon follow 19 Lavigne and Whibley are officially separated on good terms after two and a half years together